Arenas comes back, but Wizards still lose to Bucks
WASHINGTON: Gilbert Arenas made a surprise return on Wednesday night after 66 games away, but Ramon Sessions provided the Arenas-like dramatics with a 19-foot jumper at the buzzer to give the Milwaukee Bucks a 110-109 victory over the Wizards.
The Bucks, who never led by more than one point, set up the perfect inbound play to win the game. With 1.1 seconds left, Royal Ivey threw the ball in to Andrew Bogut, who found Sessions open in the corner. There was barely a tick left on the clock as the ball left Sessions' hands, but the shot was clearly good upon instant replay review.
Until then, the evening belonged to Arenas, who scored 17 points and made a pair of free throws with 15 seconds to play to give the Wizards the lead. Arenas played 19 minutes and shot 5-of-9 from the field and 5-of-7 on free throws.
In Boston, Kevin Garnett had 20 points and 11 rebounds, and the Celtics beat Indiana 92-77 to tie the NBA record for the best single-season turnaround.
With the league's best record at 60-15, the Celtics have 36 more wins than last season when they finished 24-58, the NBA's second worst mark.
The only other team to improve by that much was the San Antonio Spurs, who went from 20-62 in 1996-97 to 56-26 the next season, Tim Duncan's first.
Boston won its fifth straight and lowered its magic number for clinching the No 1 seed to two.
The Pacers were led by Danny Granger with 14 points.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, LeBron James scored 29 points before fouling out for the only the third time in his career and wasn't on the floor when Cleveland snapped a six-game road skid, beating the Bobcats 118-114.
Devin Brown had 20 points, Anderson Varejao had 17 and 12 rebounds and Zydrunas Ilgauskas added 16 points and 12 rebounds for Cleveland.
Jason Richardson had 31 points, Emeka Okafor matched a season high with 25 and Gerald Wallace scored 21 for the Bobcats.
Agencies
(China Daily 04/04/2008 page22)
